Whose America Is It, Anyway?

We Americans need to get a grip.

Many white Americans identify with the Pilgrims, with Jamestown settlers, with our Founding Fathers.  But most white Americans are descendants of much more recent immigrants.  Most white Americans' ancestors did NOT arrive on these shores via Plymouth Rock, most white Americans’ ancestors did NOT fight in our Revolutionary War, most white Americans’ ancestors arrived here in the last 150 years.  But even these children of immigrants choose to identify with Puritans rather than later immigrants.  Many white Americans would like to ignore the black experience, even though the first generation of blacks arrived here well before their European ancestors.  Many white Americans would like to ignore the indigenous experience, even though they populated the Americas for 10,000 years before the first Europeans set foot on these shores.

Qualifications

It was back in early 2015 and early 2016 that I wrote about the responsibilities of suffrage – that voting is not just a right, it is a privilege, it must be a responsibility too, you should earn it.  You need to be literate – able to read – and politically literate too – able to pass the same Citizenship Test that an immigrant must pass to become a (voting) citizen.  I expanded on that idea by suggesting that persons who know lots and lots about our history, our laws and institutions, and our founding documents ought to have their vote count as two or three average (ignorant) American citizen’s single votes.  Honestly, do you really believe that you should have an equal say in choosing our leaders as an American History professor, or someone who knows as much as he does about our history, etc.?  Yes, I surely believe in “one person, one vote.”  But, perhaps we should give some extra credit to those who devote their lives to being exemplary American citizens.  I stand by both notions today.

Power and Hierarchy

in process...

UFO’s

This article (here is his TED talk if you prefer videos to reading) prompted me to think about UFO’s.  And it’s a small leap from thinking to writing.

I have been fascinated by the idea of superior alien intelligences since as long as I can remember, most probably for the same psychological reasons as everyone else who has ever been obsessed by them.  I recall the name of Donald Keyhoe as an author whose books I consumed; his writings go way back to 1950.